Flow and transport in porous media

Research activities

Porous media are involved in many engineering applications. Our ability to understand and exploit porous media lies at the heart of many challenges, which are essential to build a sustainable future for our society. Typical applications are those related to the modeling of groundwater flow and contaminant transport in subsurface aquifers and soils, but porous media are also relevant across many industrial applications, such as, for instance, reservoir engineering, membranes and fuel cells. While flow and transport processes typically take place in micron-scale pores, engineering applications often require to consider large domains, which can extend to km-scale or beyond. Additional challenges which arise in practical applications are posed by the coupling of flow and transport processes with chemical reactions or the presence of multiple fluid phases in the porous space.Our research is aimed at building innovative models and approaches to improve our ability to predict and control flow and transport in porous media. Specific topic of research include: